Wow! Did We Just Live Through an Actual Carrington Event? Maybe...
@whatdamath 10 hours ago I forgot to mention one important tidbit. This NASA video explains more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWjtYSRlOUI Solar flares and Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) are NOT the same phenomenon. Solar flares are basically photons that reach us in 8 minutes. CMEs are charged particles that take days to reach Earth This magnetic storm was caused by the CME and not the flares. So even though the flare might have been super powerful (e.g. x30) it wouldn't affect the magnetic field at all and only have effects on the ionosphere which can affect radiocommunication but will not result in aurora or major magnetic anomalies on the surface such as busted transformers I noticed a lot of comments talk about the solar flare power (e.g. usually expressed as X45 such as the one for Carrington event) - but this doesn't tell us about the magnetic effects and t